Introduction
I am delighted to be here today to share my thoughts with you about how advancing women and providing an inclusive workplace where all people are able to fully contribute is … GOOD FOR BUSINESS.

The role of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency has changed and developed over the past two years. EOWA is a Federal Government agency that operates at a nationwide level, working with employers with more than 100 employees to advance women and business. We have worked hard over the past two years to re-model the Agency from a ‘policing’ organisation to an advisory one. I’m delighted to say that more and more Australian employers are now seeing the Agency as ‘adding value’ to their business bottom-line, which makes me feel both excited and challenged.

I am excited because of the successes and the changes I continually witness in the business world … and it is these successes that tap into my passion for change and continue to re-energise me. For example, recently I visited Alcoa in Western Australia, the world’s leading producer of primary aluminium, fabricated aluminium and alumina. The CEO invited me to advise him and his senior management team about their diversity management practices as he saw a major problem with them. His “problem” is that change isn’t happening fast enough!

Closer to home, at the legal firm Blake Dawson Waldron with its 1,683 employees nationwide, the typical ‘workaholic’ culture has been dramatically transformed with the CEO and senior management committing to a wide range of work/life initiatives. These include part-time work for employees at all levels, and does NOT preclude employees being promoted or getting ahead. The law firm now has FIVE senior partners who work part-time, one of them a male.

More and more business leaders both here and overseas are aware of the growing body of research regarding women and business success. A recent US study, for example, examined the positive performance impact of women’s presence on the boards of companies making initial public offerings (IPOs). They found that “having women on the top management team results in higher earnings and greater shareholder wealth” and that it is the mix of women and men on the board that results in higher longer-term performance. Big Business is finally beginning to be able to quantify the value that women add to the bottom-line.

Yes, things are changing! We are now seeing more and more Australian employers recognise the economic imperative of capturing the contribution of their female talent, as well as their male talent.

While I am excited, I am also challenged. As I travel across the countryside to talk with employers about how to better manage the diversity of their workforce, I meet a broad cross-section of women in organisations, young women at schools, and many talented women in business who want to make a contribution, and who want to make a positive difference.

And, as I meet these high-potential women, I wonder WHY it is that Australia still has the lowest percentage of women in management in the Western world? WHY it is that Australia remains one of the most gender-segregated workforces in the industrialised world?

As a mother of two girls under 10, I want to see my daughters enjoy the same opportunities as the boys in their classroom. I feel incredibly privileged and a bit overwhelmed sometimes to be in a position where I can do more about equity for not only my children, but for ALL children. Social analysts have estimated that at the current rate of change it will take 177 years before we realise equal representation for women – well, I’d like to think that I can do something today that will bring my daughters the same opportunities as a man for the same work … and that this will occur … preferably in my lifetime!

Why are people doing this? Why manage diversity?

In reality, capturing the benefits of diversity is all about economics. It’s about the Business Case. It’s about creating a sustainable diverse workforce that in turn makes more money for your business.

And it’s not just about women. What impacts on women, also impacts on men and consequently, on society. A group of both female and male potential partners at Deloittes were recently asked if they wanted to make Partner. Only one out of eight wanted to be a Partner, the rest preferring to preserve a work/life balance. The new paradigm for work is one where people consider themselves more than employees, and work something more than ‘nine to five’.

Increasing numbers of employers are seeing that effective diversity management is also about “winning the war for talent” and strengthening intellectual capital. When 400 senior executives from major global companies were asked what factor they considered the MOST critical to the success of their respective businesses, “quality people” was the overwhelming response. This underlies the very strong belief successful business leaders have that in a world of breathtaking speed, ever-changing technology and the fresh challenges of globalisation, the one thing you can aim to keep ‘fixed’ is … good people.

As Justice Mary Gaudron, Australia’s first and only female High Court judge, said:

“It is short-sighted and stupid to treat women as inferior, because this country simply cannot afford not to fully utilise its intellectual capital, at least half of which resides in the female sex.”

Organisations can, and do, make significant savings to their bottom-line through implementing effective diversity practices.

For instance, organisations benefit from reduced absenteeism and lower staff turnover. Let me give you a couple of examples:

• At Deloittes & Touche, one of America’s largest accounting, tax and consulting firms, the CEO realised that too many of its talented women were walking out the door – not to raise families as they had previously assumed, but because they had weighed up their options in Deloitte’s male-dominated culture and found it wanting. Through the CEO’s personal drive, women partners went from 5% to 14%, the highest in ‘the Big 5’, AND saved over US$250 million in hiring and training costs.
• In Australia, at Tiwest, a titanium minerals production and processing company, management made a business decision to focus on selecting the best person for the job, including actively head-hunting female engineers who were on maternity leave. As a result they have achieved excellent recruitment outcomes for women, with almost 40% of applications from females for engineers in more non-traditional areas.

These examples show a direct link between effective diversity management practices and reducing expenses. But what about the indirect costs, the subtle ways in which the market perceives your organisation and your people management? By aiming to provide a workplace that is inclusive for all employees, organisations gain a unique position as a Best Practice employer in the marketplace, as well as an enhanced corporate image.

Further, your customers’ perception can be just as important, if not more so, than your prospective employees. Making women visible at the top can provide a competitive edge in selling services and products to the growing number of female customers, who advertising agencies target as those with the purchasing power. “Winning the war for talent” means that companies are recognising the need to have a diverse workforce reflecting the diversity of its customer base. Today’s diverse customer base needs to be reflected in a diverse organisation in which employees can fully contribute and are more committed and motivated.

Why is it so hard?
If the valuing of diversity is so good for business, why is it so difficult to achieve?

Diane Grady, a non-executive Director of several public companies including Lend Lease, Woolworths and MLC, believes that the problems start very early on in a woman’s career. “Women”, she says, “are not being given career-making opportunities in their first, second or third positions ... they’re not assigned to the most critical clients ... they don’t have an opportunity to make a name for themselves early enough in their career”.

Similarly, the Deloittes’ task force found that women perceived they had fewer career opportunities than men, but no one could pinpoint why. They ran a series of workshops and discovered that, as one woman put it, “women get evaluated on their performance; men get evaluated on their potential” . Everyone knew that the high-profile, high-revenue assignments were the key to advancement in the organisation. But the process of assigning these career-defining accounts was largely unexamined, often based on male partners’ unconscious assumptions about what women wanted.

These barriers to advancement were highlighted in a survey by Catalyst, a non-profit organisation in the US that works with Fortune 500 companies to advance women, which asked 325 CEO’s and more than 10,000 female executives the question “What holds women back from advancement?”. The response differed markedly between the two groups:

• 52% of the female executives said the main issue was male stereotyping and preconceptions, while only 25% of CEOs believed that this formed a barrier.
• In addition, 49% of the female executives stated that exclusion from informal networks was an issue, and 47% stated lack of significant general management or line experience contributed.
• By contrast, a staggering 82% of the CEO respondents stated that the most pressing barrier to women’s advancement was the lack of significant general management or line experience, followed by 64% believing women had not been in the pipeline long enough.

This research reflects my own experience that what women say – and what CEOs think – differs markedly. It’s a Catch 22. Women are not getting the experience they need in line and general management roles, and this is due to the issues the women cite – male stereotyping and exclusion from the informal networks.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with organisations that have fundamental changes to make to their workplace culture.

Professor Amanda Sinclair, well-known Australian economist and researcher, recognised in her Trials at the Top study that a workplace culture inclusive of diversity is critical to women’s’ success. She identified four stages of workplace culture in Australian corporates. Where does your organisation fit in?

Stage 1: Denial – No problem. These employers do not believe that the absence of women from senior management is a problem.

Stage 2: “The problem is Women”. Women’s differences are seen as the problem and these organisations believe that the solution lies in women learning to adapt.

Stage 3: Incremental Adjustment. The organisation recognises something is wrong when senior women keep leaving, but they go out and recruit more women without changing anything inside the organisation.

Stage 4: Commitment to a New Culture. The exclusion of women is recognised as a symptom of deeper cultural problems and senior executives take personal action for change.

One – “no problem”; two “women are the problem”; three “we’ll just hire more women”; and four, “we have an organisation culture problem here”. Which stage is your organisation at?

So, how do we fix it?
It’s not enough to just have the HR policies and practices in place. EOWA can help and advise organisations on what the legislation requires, but that’s the easy bit! Although we are specifically focused on women’s issues, the solutions are not simply women-centred – they are diversity solutions where men and women work together to create an inclusive workplace for all employees.

Organisations need effective leadership and action. AMP had a paternity policy in place for two years but it was never used. After a senior manager took the paternity leave, 80 other employees took the paternity leave. They knew they were entitled to it, the policy said so. But it wasn’t until they saw a senior manager actually using it, that they felt that it was OK.

Organisations need the CEO and senior management to “walk the talk”. The CEO at Hewlett Packard, for example, last year thanked his senior HR adviser on-stage for assisting him to transform the culture within his organisation from “unconsciously incompetent” about managing diversity to “consciously competent”. By doing so, the CEO showed a commitment to his diverse work population!
Similarly, at Blake Dawson Waldron, senior management have identified a number of tangible benefits since they started their initiatives including savings in terms of recruitment/retention/training costs; broad acceptance of flexible work practices; improved staff morale and loyalty, and market perception as an Employer of Choice in many key areas of law.

Hand-in-hand with the leadership push is re-aligning the workplace culture. This is the basis for any organisational change and involves both the individual’s outcomes as well as the organisational outcomes.

Interestingly, a survey released last month by the Australian Institute of Management of 400 organisations has revealed that 64% of companies have made the crucial link between their HR strategy and the organisation’s overall business strategy. “Quality HR practices” have emerged as a key ingredient in corporate success. Those that reported improved business levels had HR representation at board level, explicit policies on internal and external recruitment, enhanced packages and long-term benefits for key employees, emphasis on balance and quality of life for employees, strong commitment to formal performance reviews, and policy linking rewards to performance.

What can one manager do?
“So what can I do?” you ask yourself. “How can I make a difference?”

Firstly, it is important to remember that change takes place over time, it is incremental and rarely occurs overnight. But each manager can still make a difference by taking effective small steps now.

Here are 10 things that one manager can do:

• Demonstrate ‘zero tolerance’ for discrimination
• Include more than one woman in hiring and promotion interviews
• Hold regular gender issue meetings and share stories
• Assign proportional representation to task forces
• Participate in diversity workshops for inspiration
• Discuss gender diversity with external executives
• Join a committee or organisation where you are a minority, and
• Create work social events that female management can comfortably attend.

Conclusion
I would like to leave you with a quote from David Pottruck, CEO of a Fortune 500 US company, Charles Schwab. Charles Schwab recently opened offices in Australia. In the United States the company is considered one of the country’s ‘Top 10’ most innovative businesses, and No. 2 in all of America in terms of an organisation to work for. I hope these words from the company’s CEO inspire you as you meet the challenge of walking the HR/Diversity walk.

“To garner the cultural benefits of diversity we have to want them badly enough to not just tolerate diversity but to embrace it, to demand it as part of our culture as part of our competitive advantage. And once we do, we have to adopt the policies, practices and personal discipline it takes to get the most from it.”

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